A new report from leading solar analyst Vishal Shah, at Deutsche Bank, says demand for solar is already expected to increase by 10% a year out to 2022, to around 140GW.
But the impact of EVs, solar micro-grids, corporate power purchase agreements and storage parity could see this growth rate more than double, pushing annual demand for new solar power to 250GW by 2022.

Shah says solar is the logical replacement for “liquid fuel generation” – primarily dirty and expensive diesel – which currently accounts for around 405GW of capacity around the world. Given an average capacity factor of 25%, that suggests an addressable market of 1,600GW for the solar industry.

Shah puts the cost of diesel power at around US40c/kWk, around four times the cost of a comparable solar solution. He factors in annual growth demand of 20GW for this market, but concedes that could be conservative.